college. lynn sweet from the "chicago sun-times." thanks for joining us. that's "all in." catch my show "up" weekends at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. "the rth rachel maddow show" st now. we have a scoop on the bridge scandal coming up in just a moment. a new thing to report. thanks, than. thanks to you at home for staying with us the next hour. as i just mentioned to steve because i feel like i've got to check in with him on this story because he's been on it more than anybody else in the building, we do have some new news to report on the chris christie new jersey bridge scandal tonight. msnbc has obtained new information tonight both on the investigation into governor christie's administration as well as the governor's response to that investigation. i will explain that new information that we have uncovered tonight in just a moment. but first, you should know governor christie, himself commented today at some length on the bridge scandal and on how he is handling it as governor. he was questioned on the matter at an appearance at the economic

club of chicago. the governor was being interviewed at that appearance by the chairman of motorola which comes up in the initial part of the remarks. check it out. >> as you think about it going forward, does the g.w. bridge situation impact your ability to execute on those priorities for the state? >> actually i'm shocked you brought that up. here's the thing about government or about motorola solutions. >> stick to government. stick to government. stay on government, governor. >> you opened the door, buddy. large organizations are dynamic and incredibly creative because they're inhabited by human beings. they're also inherently flawed because they're inhabited by

human beings. and some people who worked for me made some significant mistakes in judgment, and when you're the leader of that organization, and you're confronted with that, the first thing that happens to you, what happened to me, was extraordinary disappointment. extraordinary disappointment that people that i had trusted had made such bad judgments and had not told the truth. but you only have a few minutes to wallow in that disappointment. if you're a leader, you have to get a handle on the story and take decisive action which we did by letting people go and talking to the public about it. we're in the midst of an internal review now, and whatever that internal review discloses, we're going to release to the public and if there's more action that needs to be taken, i'll take it. but i don't think it will curtail, for the long haul, a second-term agenda because i think the public in new jersey won't tolerate it. the fact is they expect me and the legislature to continue to do what we did in the first four

years, find solutions to new jersey's problems and get things done. while the last six weeks haven't been the most enjoyable in my life, i can guarantee you, on the other hand the fact is we need to do our work. >> governor chris christie of new jersey speaking in illinois today. addressing the bridge scandal and the investigations in to him and his administration. as he described at the end, basically the challenge of governing in that environment. governor christie made those remarks at the economic club of chicago today. after that event, he met with republican party donors. this afternoon. and now tonight he's doing a fund-raising dinner for the republican governors association which, of course, he chairs. the goal of the republican governors association, of course, is to elect republican governors around the country. and whatever you think of the prospect of any republican being elected governor in deep blue illinois, there are four republicans who are in the run to try to compete for that seat in illinois. even though the head of the republican governors association was in their state today raising

money from their in-state republican donors, presumably to try to help one of their eventual campaigns for the top job in the state, lynn sweet at the "chicago sun-times" reported yesterday that not one of those four republican candidates would admit to having plans to getting anywhere near chris christie on this trip. as it turned out, two of the four candidates did end up at chris christie events today, but they were events that were closed to the press and closed to the public and there were no came cameras. so no pictures of the candidates with the governor. same thing happened on chris christie's recent trip to texas where the republican governor of texas and the republican candidate for governor of texas did not want to be seen with chris christie. even though he was in their state. it happened in florida as well. where the republican governor running for re-election in florida did no public events with chris christie and the one private event he did with the governor, governor rick scott was brought in through the back door of the event to avoid photographers and reporters who would have seen him going into

the front door to meet with chris christie. today in illinois, it was democrats who tried to capitalize on chris christie's appearance in that state by trotting out the former democratic governor, ted strickland, to basically rake chris christie over the coals and to highlight the fact that the republican candidates for governor in illinois did not want to be seen with him while he was on a fund-raising trip to their state. >> we're here in yil yillinois , it seems not even the winds of chicago can blow away the storm clouds that are hanging over the head of governor chris christie. while we wait for the governor to explain exactly what happened, he's continuing to trachl arou travel around the country as the rga chair to raise money for candidates who seem to refuse to be seen or photographed with him. i was the governor of a large state. i was surrounded by top staff. and my judgment, it is impossible for these kinds of things to have happened in chris

christie's office without his knowledge or his consent. so governor christie needs to stand up and clear up what he knew and when he knew it and explain just how deeply his office was involved in the scheme that has caused this evolving scandal. and while the investigations are going forward, christie and his office should stop orchestrating attacks on those conducting these investigations, news outlets and other reasonably asking tough questions. i'm suggesting two things. two possibilities. either the governor knew and he is lying, or he is the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable. as i said, i was the governor of a large state, and i had a close-knit staff. now, governor christie in his press conference i think tried

to absolve himself of some responsibility by talking about the thousands of state employees. well, of course new jersey has thousands of state employees. but we're talking about the four or five or six people that were closest to this man. his campaign manager. his deputy chief of staff. the man he chose to nominate to be attorney general. these are people that he interacted with continually, closely, and if he did not know what they were doing, then he certainly is not a person who should be considered for the presidency of the united states of america. if he is so incompetent in his judge of character and his oversight of his administration, then god help us if he were to become president. >> former ohio governor ted strickland basically taking new jersey governor chris christie apart today at a press conference in illinois today

that was timed to coincide with governor christie's trip to that state. of course, talking about corruption and abuse of power in illinois has a special kind of resonance, right? i mean, if you think about it, if the democrats wanted to have a charismatic former democratic governor go after chris christie on this trip to illinois so that charismatic democratic former governor could talk about, you know, what i know from having governed a large state and all that, it's a little odd that the democrats had to resort to a governor from the not quite neighboring state of ohio, right? but that's because they definitely couldn't pick the last former democratic governor of illinois for this gig today because the last former democratic governor of illinois is rod blagojevich and former democratic governor rod blagojevich of illinois is, of course, in prison for more than a decade. on charges of corruption and abuse of power. so awkward choice for the democrats today. couldn't pick blagojevich, so they got a guy untarnished by corruption scandals from ohio instead. had to go two states over.

in terms of what ted strickland said, though, today, about how governor christie's office ought to stop attacking the news outlets who are reporting on the scandal and the people who are investigating it, governor christie's office kept that writeup today. they released this broadside attack on "new york times" reporter kate zernike after she made an appearance on msnbc. in the governor's press release his office attacks what he describes as, ""the new york times" myths about the scandal ascandal" and a special counsel hired by the legislature, in a unanimous vote, 100% bipartisan vote. the governor's office today calls that special counsel, "the democrats' lawyer." is that what he is? just the lawyers for the democrats. the way governor christie kept up a steady stream on people reporting this story and people investigating this scandal while the governor, himself, keeps saying in public how much he's cooperating and how much he wants to get to the bottom of all it, that paradox, that

contradiction between his personal public statements and what his office is doing in his name, that continues to be one of the weirder aspects of this story that i think probably hasn't had enough attention. it is a weirder aspect of this story. it is not quite as weird as the reporting yesterday that governor christie might have done a flyby of the traffic jam in ft. lee by helicopter while those access lanes on to the george washington bridge were blocked. numerous press outlets yesterday reported governor christie might have flown over the traffic jam that had been ordered up by his staff on his helicopter ride back to new jersey from new york on the morning of september 11th, last year. and that that was why the aviation unit of the new jersey state police was having its records subpoenaed as part of the investigation. well today the new jersey state police put that speculation to rest rather emphatically when they released a statement saying that the governor's helicopteoe did not do that. "none of the three flights transporting the governor during

the week flew over or close to the george washington bridge including ft. lee including the flight on september 11th." despite press speculation to the contrary, though. the subpoenas to the state police about the governor's helicopter rides i think weren't about whether or not he flew over the traffic jam. they may not have been aimed at all from the first place. in the first place. at figuring out where that helicopter went on september 11th or any other day that week. one of the co-chairs of the committee who issued that subpoena to the part of the state police that controls the governor's helicopter rides, one of co-chairs of that committee that issued that subpoena yesterday explained as much to us last night right here on this show about why they were after the records of governor christie's helicopter travel during the shutdown. check out what he said. >> the subpoenas that came out today including the one to the aviation unit really to get answers about who knew what when. who was in the conversations at what point in time? who else was with various people

when those conversations were had? >> that particular subpoena today was described in the press as having been -- having sprung from a concern that perhaps the governor did a flyover over the george washington bridge during the bridge shutdown on the day of september 11th, 2013. do you want to comment on that speculation in the press? >> i don't know what the governor did or didn't do in the helicopter, but i do think that who conversations are had with at particular points in time are just as important to the committee as where the helicopter flew. and so this is part of a larger effort to peace together a puzzle that we're not seeing entirely clearly. but we do know that there was an abuse of power and an attempt to cover it up. we need to know how far that goes and who else knew it. >> that was john wisniewski, oe chair of the committee that is investigating the bridge scandal saying last night here on this show essentially it's not a question of whether or not governor chris christie flew over that purpose-built traffic jam in a helicopter but rather

who he might have been traveling with in the helicopter at the time of the bridge shutdown. interesting. who was he traveling with? not where did he go? but it is to that last point that john wisniewski just made there about how far this goes, about not just the abuse of power on that bridge, but the attempt to cover it up. it is that part of it to which we can add some brand new reporting tonight because msnbc tonight has obtained a document from sources close to the investigation that explains what it is that the legislative committee is looking for in this new round of 18 subpoenas that were sent out last night. none of the subpoenas has been publicly released, but we can report tonight that the investigation is looking for something very, very specific. in the newly issued subpoenas of all of these people, we've had to put it in small type so we can get them all on one screen, in the newly issued subpoenas of all the people, the new subpoena for the governor's office, the governor's re-election campaign,

new subpoena for the governor's chief of staff and brand new first-time subpoenas for all these other people who have never received subpoenas before. in all of these subpoenas that went out last night, the committee is looking for one common piece of information from each of them. "drafts of baroni, november 25th's statement to assembly transportation committee." asking for that from all of those people. this is the common denominator of what exactly the bridge-gate investigation is looking for from all of these people who just got subpoenaed for the first time or just got a second subpoena to add to their first. some of these people are asked for other things in addition to drafts of the baroni statement, but they are all asked for this. the legislature is subpoenaing all these people at the port authority, all these lower-level people who work in the governor's staff and governor's office and his campaign, again, all looking for who helped draft the cover-up.

this was the bill bnaroni testimony to the legislature on november 25th. this is where he spun out that false tale, the cover-up that it was a traffic study. it wasn't a traffic study. this was the coverup. now we know the investigation is casting a net to try to find out who was in on drafts of that cover story testimony. who was in on the drafts of the cover story that they tried and failed to sell to the legislature to cover up what really happened on that bridge? were any of these people, were any of these offices in on it? was the governor's campaign in on it? was the governor's office in on it? and we can report tonight that that is what the investigation is now zeroing in on finding out. and we can additionally report that the governor's re-election campaign has confirmed to nbc news tonight that, indeed, one of the things that is in their new subpoena is a request for any communication with bill baroni prior to that false testimony to the legislature. our document that we can report originally here tonight shows that that was the target of all

of those subpoenas going to all of those people as of last night. at least one of the people, one of the organizations that received one of the subpoenas confirms that is accurate, that is what they were asked for. this investigation is now about who was in on the cover-up. game on. t breathe through your nose... suddenly you're a mouthbreather. well, put on a breathe right strip and instantly open your nose up to 38% more than cold medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right. try align. it's the number one ge recommended probiotic that helps maintain digestive balance. ♪ stay in the groove with align.

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[ crowd gasps ] the comeback trail. [ buzzer sounds ] it's easy to get lost here among life's false starts and what-ifs. but this isn't the end, merely a chance for us to begin again. at liberty mutual, we believe with every setback there's a chance to come back and rise. liberty mutual insurance. auto, home, life. hi boys! i've made you campbell's chunky new england clam chowder. wow! this is incredible! i know. and now it has more clams! [ male announcer ] campbell's chunky soup. what? [ male announcer ] it fills you up right. people who work for me made significant mistakes in judgment and when you're the leader of

that organization, and you're confronted with that, the first thing that happens to you, what happened to me was extraordinary disappointment. strord disappointment that people i had trusted had made such bad judgments and had not told the truth. >> people he trusted had not told the truth. governor chris christie of new jersey addressing his big lane scandal on a trip to illinois today. joining us now, darrylisherwood for the new jersey news and information website, nj.com. mr. isherwood, thank you very much for being here especially because i'm told you had to personally lift up a lincoln town car over your head to get it out of your icy driveway, is that true? >> on my shoulders, hiked it up the driveway, hopped in the backer, here we are. >> everybody from new jersey is that strong. >> it's a tough place. >> thank you for doing it. last night we got our hands on

what the legislature is looking for, pothe people who received e new subpoenas. the legislature seems to be zeroing in on that testimony bill baroni gave to the legislature. who was involved in drafting the testimony which we now know is a cover story. what do you think is the significance of that? >> you know, i think it's interesting they're looking a the that specifically because one of the people on that list is phil kwon who is an attorney now with the port authority. if you remember, he was the governor's nominee to the supreme court, shot down by the democratic legislature. so he was the one who actually prepped baroni for the testimony or so it's been reported. i think it's interesting they're zeroing in on that to try to find out, you know, sort of a way to back into this, the way i see it. you know, if the governor says we didn't know anything about it but then they find out they were helping baroni prep for this testimony which we've come to find out was basically untrue, you know, that's a kind of way to back in to find out who knew

what, when and where. >> it's interesting it's phil kwon, who, again, the port authority doesn't deny was involved in prepping mr. b a, roni for that testimony. contact with mr. baroni ahead of the testimony, the governor's office more broadly and a huge, long list of people in the port authority and the governor's office including, like, assistants and people who don't have high-level jobs. does seem like a very wide net they're casting for this information, doesn't it? >> it does. you know, it struck me there were names on there from the governor's administration i didn't know and i've covered him for four years. that tells you they're getting down deep into this. you know, it goes back to that basically to that text from baroni, if you remember, he texted david wildstein to say what was the response from the administration on his testimony? and wildstein typed back, you know, they were happy and he threw out a couple of names. i think that's where they're zeroing in is baroni was

specifically asking, hey, what did they think of what i just did? he was told they loved it. i think that's probably what sparked this interest in, you know, who in the administration, who in the election campaign, who in the port authority, actually knew what he was saying and helped him prep for it? >> darryl, there's also some news today that the legislature was told, actually in an unrelated matter, into andy funds, that the policy of the governor's office under chris christie nobody who works in the governor's office will be allowed to testify. i don't know if they mean that it is the investigatory committee looking into the bridge scandal. is that a road block for this investigation? >> i think it would be. if you remember when david wildstein was called to testify and took the fifth, they were counting on him shedding a lot of light on what happened here and he sat down and took the fifth. they got nothing out of him. it was a long hearing of one

answer after another, i'm going to exert my fifth amendment rights. and so they really, you know, it stalled them a little bit and then they, you know, went back and cast an even wider net with subpoenas. so i think it would be, if you're not getting the information, you're not getting the people sitting down and telling you what you're looking to hear, i think it's definitely a road block for him. >> of course, it remains to be seen whether if that is a generic policy of the administration, they'll apply it to this very special type of political committee before the legislature, but we haven't had comment on that yet. darryl ishewood, thank you for being here. senior political reporter for nj.com. i really appreciate it, particularly the lengths you had to go to, sir. stay with us. there's more to come. we promise you won't have to lift your own car over your head in order to understand it. stay with us. the volkswagen passat against all comers. turbocharged engines against...engines. best in class rear legroom against other-class legroom. but then we realized. consumers already did that. twice.

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today in washington, house speaker john boehner did something on tape that i think he really maybe did not mean. at least, well, watch it yourself. i think he at least didn't mean it in a literal sense. watch. he sings here. watch. >> thanks. >> thank you. >> zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay. plenty of sunshine coming my way. >> we didn't add that audio to the tape. that really was house speaker john boehner singing zip-a-dee-doo-dah to reporters as he waubed out of his press conference today. why did john boehner do that?

he is an ironic man. he's a man who has a sense of irony and, in fact, had no sunshine coming his whey today. the house republicans actually rather collapsed today. and they made sure to do it right before the giant snowstorm on purpose. kind of a strange night in washington tonight. stay with us for that story. straight ahead. when you order the works you want everything. an expert ford technician knows your car's health depends on a full, complete checkup. the works. because when it comes to feeling safe behind the wheel, going the distance and saving at the pump you want it all. get our multi-point inspection with a a synthetic blend oil change, tire rotation, brake inspection and more for $29.95 or less. get a complete vehicle checkup. only at your ford dealer. ♪ aflac, aflac, aflac! ♪ [ both sigh ]

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the southeast and the east coast tonight are bracing for another giant winter storm to dump anywhere from 3 to, i don't know, 20 inches of snow, plus tons of ice. again. the storm has already begun in some parts of the southeast. as of right now, it's expected to make its way up the east coast tomorrow night and all day throughout thursday. our nation's capital, washington, d.c., anticipating a storm like something they haven't seen for three decades. remember how washington was absolutely stymied by the big snowstorm they called snow ma getten in 2010? this year everybody's worried this storm that's bearing down on d.c. right now might be even bigger than that. >> a high-impact event. it's going to start out as snow for everybody. obviously the amounts are going

to vary widely. major travel delays and widespread cancelations are likely. really just depends on the track of the storm. newest model data does indicate the storm will be hugging closer and closer to the coast. that means a heavy, wet snow. not the powder we had last time. >> blown concrete, the warning from nbc washington bureau's weather -- blown concrete? sorry. sounds terrible. but glass half full here, a by-product of this gigantic winter storm is we as a nation are not going to default on our national debt. and send the entire global economy into a free fall. that's a nice side effect of the storm. the house of representatives decided to vote tonight just a couple hours ago to raise the nation's debt ceiling with no strings attached. they're not raising the debt ceiling but only if democrats agree to repeal obamacare, they're not raising the debt ceiling but only if president obama approves the keystone pipeline.

no, the house voted tonight to raise the debt ceiling through march of next year thereby assuring the world the u.s. will not default on its debt. clean rise. no policy zristrings. as late as last night, everybody expected a new demand from house republicans about what they wanted in exchange for paying the country's outstanding debts, but the house republican meeting last night where they were supposed to figure out what their demand was going to be, that meeting did not seem to two very well. republican members apparently refused to go along with their leadership. nbc news reports republican mike kelly of pennsylvania stood up and screamed to the room, "what kind of team is this?" congressman kelly reportedly received some applause for his remarks but still nowhere near enough republican members of congress fell in love behiine be supposed leaders of this supposed team. as of this morning, nobody knew what the republicans were going to do.

nobody knew what house republicans were going to ask for in exchange for passing the debt ceiling. then today, john boehner let the other shoe drop. he announced what the republicans would demand in exchange for raising the debt ceiling was nothing. he explained they could agree on nothing so they are demanding nothing. no demands about obamacare or oil drilling or abortion restrictions or anything else. and so that straight up or down vote happened today. it was originally scheduled to be later this week, but everybody's worried enough about that storm bearing down on washington that they all wanted to vote today in enough time to let them get out of town and get home safe before the snow comes. that debt ceiling bill passed tonight 221-201. 28 republicans crossed the aisle to vote for it. 199 republicans voted against it. but the bottom line is it passed. we will not self-inflict that particular economic wound again just because conservatives demanded that republicans do so. and so naturally conservatives are livid tonight. they are really mad at john

boehner. group called the senate conservatives fund is urging people to call house republicans to demand that john boehner lose the speakership because he allowed this vote to raise the debt ceiling. they, of course, are the senate conservatives fund which makes this call a little awkward, but apparently they're all over the house. the club for growth warned they would score the vote to punish anyone who voted for it tonight. an adviser told reporters, "when we heard house leadership was scheduling a clean debt ceiling increase, we thought it was a joke. it's not. something is very wrong with house leadership or with the republican party." heritage action, the group widely credited with forcing the republicans to shut down the government last fall, they, too, warned that they would score the vote today. that they would punish anyone who went along with john boehner on this today. but you know what, the republican leadership jumped anyway. john boehner brought this bill to the floor and passed it with overwhelming democratic votes and just a few republicans. and he did not seem to care much

at all about these guys screaming at him from the right. threatening his job and all the rest of it. and that's not the first time. just this year that this has happened. earlier this month, all these same conservative groups issued dire warnings and threats to republicans they better not support the farm bill. but the farm bill also passed the house. and then it passed the senate and became law and nobody much seemed to care about the scary warnings from the senate conservatives fund and all these other groups about how terrible it would be especially for the republicans who went along with it. it was the same deal on the spending bills earlier this year. the right said, don't do it. you'll be sorry. and john boehner did it anyway and the legislation passed mostly with democratic votes but with enough republicans to make it happen. this keeps happening. so, question, if republicans don't really care what these right-wing groups have to say on the debt ceiling and the farm bill and the spend lging bills, why can't republicans not care what those groups have to say on immigration? because republicans are defying

the right on all of these other matters of legislation, but they're not defying the right on immigration. not at all. i mean, look what's happened on immigration. first the republicans said they couldn't possibly support immigration reform because president obama wasn't being tough enough on the border. the administration then forced a record number of deportations at the border and record increase in border security. so republicans decided, okay, then that wasn't their issue. they didn't want immigration for a different reason. house republicans then said they couldn't possibly consider a comprehensive immigration plan. it had to be piecemeal, had to be a bunch of individual bills instead of one big bill. so the president said, okay, sure, if that's what you're willing to consider, i can work with that. i don't care what the bill looks like, let's pass something. we can do it in a million little pieces. then of course the house republicans decided actually that wasn't their issue. they didn't want to do it for a whole different reason. their latest reason was this. "house speaker john boehner dampened prospects for immigration reform this year blaming a lack of trust between

the white house and the republicans." we won't pass this because we don't trust the president. to which democrats responded "okay, you don't trust the president, no problem, we can work around that. we'll pass an immigration law that doesn't go into effect until president obama isn't president anymore. it will go into effect after he leaves office. you don't have to worry about the fact you don't trust him. is that good enough? of course not. republicans said, oh, that's not our issue anymore. immigration still can't happen because we don't know who the next president is going it be either. republican congressman jim jordan said, "we don't know who's going to be president in 2017." you need to guarantee that they get their chosen president in 2017 or there can't be immigration? we might not like the next president, either. we can't pass immigration with tons of deportations and border security, can't pass immigration piecemeal, we can't pass it after barack obama is no longer president. i mean, on every other issue now, the republicans are waling

about it but in the end shooting down the conservatives who are tell them to say no to everything. they're defying the conservatives on all these other issues. why not on this issue? why are the conservatives winning and the republicans still saying no on this one issue? joining us now, john stanton, washington bureau chief at buzzfeed. thanks for being here. nice to have you here. >> good to be here. >> first i have to ask you about this vote tonight. why do you think speaker boehner brought up the debt limit, clean, no strings attached tonight for a vote? >> i thchiink he looked at it a said there's no political downside for him in the house. most of the members arguing against him, his -- the majority of his members look at those people and they say, you don't have any power anymore. after what happened with the government shutdown, there's no good reason for us to follow you sort of back into the abyss. so we're just not going to. boehner looks at this and says, assuming he's around next year, he could still be speaker, still

able to control the chamber. frankly, the pressure in washington just isn't there like it was six months ago on these issues. he's really been able on at least fiscal issues to defuse this crisis within his conference. he gets beat up by heritage action and others and there's this small very vocal group of republicans that come at him. at the end of the day, they don't have the sway with their colleagues they used to. >> if the pressure is less potent in the way you describe, why is that pressure apparently succeeding on immigration? or does right-wing pressure not explain why the republicans are still saying no on immigration? >> yeah, not in the same way certainly. when you talk to members of the house, they look at it as a sort of a different situation whereas they're getting beat up on the national level by heritage action and others on debt and some of these other issues. on immigration, they're feeling the pressure from below. it's their voters. and they go home to go do town halls. they go home and they hear talk radio. and they're feeling this sort of organic pressure from republican-based voters in their

districts. and some of it has to do with sort of just a perceived orthodoxy, you don't vote for immigration reform if you're a republican. some of it, some republicans have told me is frankly because they believe some of their constituents are racist. and they don't want to see latinos in particular coming in and getting the same kind of rights that they have. and in some instances, it's just this sort of democrats want it, we don't want to have it, and if you vote for it, that make you a rino and we won't vote for you or will allow a primary challenger to take you out. i think they go home and they hear this and that terrifies them. i think those are the pressures that boehner is ultimately responding to. you know, some folks hope that he's looking at this as an issue where he can sort of say these things now, let this play out some more and get back into may or june when they get past the primary season and bring his people back together and try to pass immigration. i do think the hopes are starting to wane again. >> it's fascinating the difference between public opinion and general election

opinion on an issue like immigration reform and the republican base and being an individual member having to split that -- having to split between those two things. i don't envy them the choice. i would never run for office. let me ask you also, john. you reported today on kind of a weirdly threatening e-mail that has been circulating to republican members' personal e-mail accounts. can you explain what's going on there? >> yeah, so members of the house have a personal e-mail address, house e-mail address that is not publicly available and most staff can't get at it. and they -- some republicans, particularly sort of moderate folks, have been getting these sort of strange e-mails from unrepresentative 1 who is an anonymous person, vaguely threatening them and threatening particularly representative langford from oklahoma and saying we're going to come after you if you vote for the debt ceiling and they circulated this list of, hit list, essentially, for political targets. and it reads more or less like your crazy uncle that sends you the weird spears forwards.

it reads like that. most of them believe it's either a member of their conference sending it anonymously or a high-level staffer maybe or they have given it to some outside person who's now pretending to be a member of congress. and it sort of points to a bit of the dysfunction that's going on within the conference, frankly, because if you look three years ago, this is not the kind of thing that would happen. no one would have ever thought to use these very private e-mails that are not supposed to be used for these kind of things as a way to pressure other members into not voting for a debt ceiling vote. >> the crazy conspiratorial e-mail. it's coming from inside the house! john stanton, washington bureau chief at buzzfeed. thanks for that, john. great to have you here, man. >> good to be here. lots more ahead including a reporter's water bottle full of jet black toxic goo. and more. stay with us. thanks. >> thank you. >> zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

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this is a new map, a new version of it that's just been put out by the energy information administration. when you look at the whole country, it looks terrible and totally not usable, but if you zoom in, turns out it's awesome.

if you want

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we were told if you smelled the water, the water was not safe. i have a 10-year-old girl tell me the other day the water stinks. she can smell the smell. about 1,000 feet from the plant. they still smell it and the water stinks when it comes out. >> cooks and custodians included. it sits nose to the river. the school is about 500 feet from that river. over a month ago, a toxic chemical used to wash coal spilled out of of a virtually unregulated above ground storage

stank into the water supply. sometimes you can smell the chemical in the water, but if you want an actual scientific measurement, you go here to the regular reports being published now by the state. and you can see in these reports that they tested the water at the elementary school last week on thursday. and that sample came back nd, not detectable. they wrote nd twice there for lab number one and two. that toxic chemical last week at that school was not detectable. yesterday they tested it again. east water fountain, not detectable. but down the hall at the west water fountain, same school, this time the sampling came up positive. lab number one, positive. lab number two, positive. the chemical was there. it wasn't there last week, it is there this week. on thursday, the school showed no evidence of the chemical. yesterday, the tests were positive in that water fountain and nobody knows why.

dave boucher noted the school is going to keep handing out bottled water. they say they also plan to flush the pipes again. but you know what, they show nondetectable levels of the chemical. they also say they don't believe the chemical can stick to plumbing. so if the water is heading into the school as clean, and there's nothing in the pluming that can make the water not clean, why is the water dirty at that school? where is the chemical coming from? don't know. how is don't know for an answer. according to david boucher, no one can explain why several schools are showing the chemical after the chemicals have been flushed. what's the theory here? the grade schoolers are making this chemical and sticking it into the water fountain. but just the west one, not the east one? the governor of west virginia today announced that west

virginia will start conducting some testing in some homes, trying to figure out why the chemical keeps reappearing in the water. they've commissioned a team of scientists to sample water starting in ten homes across the region. then they'll expand to 100 or more homes. they'll consider what the pipes are made of to see if different types of feerls are more likely to have soaked up the material, holding on to it like a sponge. last week, governor tomlin was all about waving off the idea of testing in homes, but now we' got another school testing positive for the coal washing

chemical that was supposed to be long gone now. it was long gone in the school last week but is back now. how is that? west virginia, you do know how to throw a tuesday. at this rate, who knows what's going to happen in this story next. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. thanks for being with us tonight. have a great night. chris christie went chicago today to tell some rich people something that all of them can relate to. that his problems are all his staff's fault. >> the last six weeks haven't been the most enjoyable of my life. >> chris christie is in chicago. >> christie is hoping that things will blow over now that he's in the windy city. >> republicans are running for the hills. >> even when he hits the road -- >> his third out of state trip since bridgegate began. >> christie remains a very effective rga fundraising. >> in spite of the scandal. >> but he can't leave behind questions about the bridge scandal. >> i'm shocked you brought that up.